Find what you want

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

I did some digging and looked up all the players the Blazers could have drafted. These are players that were on the board when the Blazers were selecting. I have also included the players the Blazers did take. I then made a list of the starters of what each team would have looked like if the Blazers had drafted the players. So here is the list of the All-Time Almost Blazers, listed as one team:

Moses Malone - (Blazers did draft him, but he never played a game, instead he was traded to the Buffalo Braves for a first round draft pick). They ended up drafting Herm Gilliam. (Possible lineup if Malone was kept: Lionel Hollins, Bob Gross, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, and Bill Walton.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

In honor of the Oscars and my recent post of predictions, I got to thinking how The Town was snubbed of an Oscar nomination. I decided to look through history and do a little history into movies that we love and still talk about, and the movies that beat them. Thus, here is my list of the biggest Oscar snubs in history (in no particular order)....

1. Citizen Kane
Considering this film tops so many lists as one the greatest if not the best film ever made, I'm shocked it did not win. You know what won? How Green Was My Valley. What movie you ask? I had the same question. Also nominated that is far more famous than How Green Was My Valley is the classic noir film The Maltese Falcon.

2. Pulp Fiction
One of the most defining, brutal, honest, inspirational, well-written, badass, quotable movies ever made. It was a complex blending of different storylines that included and focused on themes of redemption, forbidden love, vengeance, and reconciliation, and yet lost to the popular, but not as well crafted Forrest Gump. I honestly believe Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption split the vote and what emerged was Forrest Gump.

3. Apocalypse Now
Guess what won. I'll give you a hint. It came out in 1979. It's called Kramer vs. Kramer. I'll let you in on another secret, The Academy made a mistake. How many people have seen Kramer and how many people have seen the epic Apocalypse Now? That's what I thought.

4. Saving Private Ryan
Admittedly, it lost to Shakespeare in Love which is phenomenal in its own right. But if we could award this award based on the first ten minutes, or based on scale, or ambition, or quality blending of incredibly human stories of love, friendship, bonding, and sacrifice on the scale of WWII, instead of on marginally better audience reaction, then Saving Private Ryan wins every time.

5. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring/The Twin Towers
They lost to A Beautiful Mind and Chicago respectively. Again, scope, scale, ambition, story, freshness, and awesomeness are clearly not weighted heavily enough because every single Lord of the Rings movie was the best movie of their respective year. At least they awarded Return of the King 11(!) Oscars to award the entire series.

6. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
One of the most incredible films ever made. It also belongs on the list of amazing movies no one watches. The plot is what make this movie so incredible: When one rogue American military general obsessed with bodily fluids and hydration suffers paranoia he launches all of America's B-52 bombers to nuke the shit out of Russia, the President, Russian ambassador, Dr. Strangelove (a defected German scientist), a British communications officer, and a passionate gum-chewing American general must find a way to recall the planes before they drop a bomb and detonate Russia's doomsday device. We follow the stories of the paranoid general and the British officer, the President and war council in the Pentagon, and the flight crew of a B-52 bomber. One of the funniest, most well written script ever.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

I'm only predicting the categories I know well and care about, also known as, the only categories anyone cares about.
Legend:italicized nominees = The one I believe will winBolded nominees= The one I want to winUnderlined nominees = The Dark Horse

Best Actress
Annette Benning "The Kids Are all Right"
Nicole Kidman "Rabbit Hole"
Jennifer Lawrence "Winter's Bone"Natalie Portman"Black Swan"Michelle Williams "Blue Valentine
-----Natalie Portman was incredible and had the biggest challenge in this role than any other actress. She completely deserves this no matter what the Blue Valentine hipsters say.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams "The Fighter"Helena Bonham Carter "The King's Speech"Hailee Steinfeld "True Grit"
Melissa Leo "The Fighter"
Jacki Weaver "Animal Kingdom"
-------I want Hailee Steinfeld to win this so bad. She shouldn't even be nominated for supporting because she was the lead of that film. She performed just as well as Jeff Bridges if not better. But the Academy will give this to Helena Bonham Carter. Just watch.

Best Supporting ActorChristian Bale "The Fighter"
John Hawkes "Winter's Bone"Jeremy Renner "The Town"
Mark Ruffalo "The Kids Are All Right"Geoffery Rush "The King's Speech"
-------As great as Geoffery Rush was, I just don't see him beating the perennially show stealing Christian Bale.

Best AnimatedToy Story 3The Illusionist
How To Train Your Dragon
------As great as Toy Story 3 was, The New York Film Critic's Circle awarded this prize to The Illusionist, that's why it's my dark horse. But since Toy Story 3 probably won't win the best picture, it will win this.

Best CinematographyBlack SwanTrue Grit
The Social Network
The King's SpeechInception
------Black Swan will win this. Aronofsky made ballet cool, that's hard to do.

DirectingDaren Aronofsky "Black Swan"
David O. Russell "The Fighter"Tom Hooper "The King's Speech"David Fincher "The Social Network"
The Coen Brothers "True Grit"
------David Fincher completely deserves this. Tom Hooper did an incredible job telling a very personal, very specific, and very small story set into the context a very huge, world changing story. The great feat here is that we were fully engaged in both and were rooting for a jerkish, spoiled, yet very human man who didn't believe he was fit to be king.

Music (Original Score)
How To Train Your DragonInception
The King's Speech
127 HoursThe Social Network
-----The only reason I chose any of these was because Daft Punk got snubbed. Daft Punk wins.

Visual EffectsHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Alice in Wonderland
HereafterInception
Iron Man 2
------A city folded on top of itself. Is that not enough to win the award?

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
127 HoursThe Social NetworkToy Story 3True Grit
Winter's Bone
------Aaron Sorkin wrote a monument to screenwriting with Social Network. Don't be surprised if True Grit wins because that was also an ambitious project. The reason I want Toy Story 3 is because we all became emotionally attached to pieces of plastic. Yes, we have known them since 1996 but the characters developed so much in the last piece it's hard to discount Toy Story 3 for the award.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Another Year
The FighterInception
The Kids Are All RightThe King's Speech-----King's Speech will probably win given it's a strong story and really strong, succinct, and interesting dialogue, but no movie was as ambitious or original as Inception. I would rather see Inception win just because we were pulled into a separate world (and various worlds within that world, and the other worlds could affect what happened in the worlds above and below it. Even though that should be bewildering, we all understood it, and that's proof enough the script was fully realized).

Best Picture
Black Swan
The FighterInception
The Kids Are All RightThe King's Speech
127 HoursThe Social NetworkToy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone
----I do have 3 dark horse choices in this one. This category is really tough to call given the quality, originality, and diversity of the films nominated. The Social Network was phenomenal and it's a good pick considering most of the time the movie with the best director also gets the best picture nod. The reason I both want Toy Story 3 and why I believe it is a dark horse is for the same reason Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won. It's both a stellar movie and a lifetime achievement award and is more in recognition of the whole series than just the one film. Don't be surprised if the Academy awards Inception either, they have been known to recognize the most ambitious and epic films before i.e. Slumdog Millionaire.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

In what has turned out to not be an elaborate practical joke the NFL was playing on the rest of the world, The Seahawks are in fact in the playoffs and playing the New Orleans Saints today at 1:30 PST (4:30 EST). Previously to today’s startling announcement, the rest of the world, including sports-news juggernaut ESPN, conservative news-media FOX, liberal news-media CNN, WikiLeaks, President Obama, Seahawks owner Paul Allen, and even the New Orleans Saints’ roster and coaching staff, had all thought the NFL was pulling everyone’s leg by claiming the 7-9 Seahawks had not only won their division, but are in the playoffs. Thus it came as a shock to the rest of the world to find out that the offensively terrible and defensively absent Seahawks had in fact won their division and despite common sense or logical football analysis, are going to be playing today, which is in fact part of the postseason, against the defending champion New Orleans Saints, who are probably just as shocked as the rest of us that they are playing the Seahawks… in the playoffs… today… actually more in like 45 minutes.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

2010 had some great movies and some terrible movies. To save you time from sitting sadly and watching horrible movie after horrible movie, I have compiled a list (an index if you will) of the movies you need to see. And movies to stay away from. I have included the Rotten Tomatoes scores with the movies.

MOVIES YOU HAVE TO SEE FROM 2010

Inception - I saw the midnight premier, and had to turn to the people sitting behind me after the film to apologize, because my brain seems to have splattered all over them after my mind was blown. (87%)

The Social Network - A movie about Facebook turns out to really be a movie on friendship and betrayal and love and honor and money and greed and humility... and you get the point, there were a lot themes in an excellently directed movie (David Fincher), better written (Aaron Sorkin), better acted (Jesse Eisenberg) and surprisingly well scored (Trent Reznor) film. (96%)

True Grit - A fourteen year old girl acts just as well if not better than the Dude. This movie is going to rake in Academy Award nominations and awards, so go watch it. (94%)

Black Swan - admittedly, I haven't seen it yet. But everyone says its great. (88%)

Harry Potter - The penultimate film is exciting and effectively builds anticipation for the finale. (79%)

Kick-Ass - Without fear of sounding dumb, this movie kicks ass. (76%)

Tangled - I only had two drawbacks to this great movie. Number one, Mandy Moore's voice. I've never had to call a voice actor bad, but she was. Number two, only a year after the The Princess and the Frog, Disney fails to animate a single character (even background characters) that is not white. (88%)

The Kids Are All Right - A Sundance favorite. It's already winning awards for screenplay and acting. (94%)

The Illusionist (L'illusionniste)- Animated film that recently beat Toy Story 3 for best animated as voted on by The New York Film Critics' Circle. Um... wow. I guess we all have to see it now. (87%)

Hot Tub Time Machine -The single greatest movie title ever. (64%)

127 Hours - Danny Boyle is a great storyteller, and he has an amazing true story to work with. Win win. (93%)

Friday, December 17, 2010

You may have heard of this little thing called Fallout: New Vegas. I have unfortunately been hearing a lot of talk about how this is a "great game" or "fun interactive video game." I feel a need to interject and save the good people of this world from what is clearly a very dangerous and highly addictive drug. Take it from a current addict, this shit is a fucking time vampire.

You tell yourself, "Hey, no big deal, I'll just play for like half an hour to wind down." Of course you say this at 6pm and when you check the clock it's 3:30 in the goddamn morning and you're wondering what the hell happened. But before you can check yourself back into reality, Ed-E starts blasting his/her battle music because some Viper Gangers are trying to steal the valuable Big Boomer shotty (shotgun, not shawty, like the melody) you just had to kill an old lady prospector to steal.

You're lucky there's a sun in this world because it can be the only reminder that you're a human being, not a courier in the wasteland. You're dungeon crawling like an XP whore and getting annoyed because the glare makes it really hard to see in the low-contrast cave. That's when you realize the sun is up. If this has happened to you, turn the goddamn drug off and detox yourself with some air and water or something so you don't die.

Signs that you may have an addiction to Fallout: New Vegas:
-You're in the middle of a final presentation in class and you refer to "Las Vegas" as "New Vegas"
-You order a Coca-Cola by unknowingly saying "Nuka-Cola"
-You try to pay in caps
-You try to barter
-You wish you had enough speech skill to make an attractive girl your companion
-You keep checking the top of your vision to see if you are [hidden] [caution] or [danger]
-You don't understand what a car is
-You try hoarding as much cleaning supplies and poorly cooked foods you can, only to realize carrying 200 lbs of equipment is actually ridiculous.
-You think sleeping will cure you of all ailments

If you are suffering these symptoms, you are like me. Having a great time.

Welcome to The Overtime Index. You will find an index of the things we care about when we're not working or when we're working overtime. This is a complete index of video games, basketball, NBA, comedy, football, theatre, music, movies, entertainment, and everything else we care about.